Peshawar and Kunar: The Hunt for Mullah Fazlullah

In the hours following their attack on a school in Peshawar on December 16, Pakistani terrorist group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) issued a claim of responsibility and cited reprisal for the Pakistani military efforts to root out and destroy the group this past summer. Under the orders of Maulawi (Mullah) Fazlullah, gunmen disguised in Pakistani military uniforms traveled from room to room, identifying the children of Pakistani military personnel and slaughtering them in cold blood.

The final count was an astounding 145 people killed. A teacher that stood up valiantly, refusing to relinquish the location of specific children, was killed in horrific fashion—doused in gasoline, set alight, and burned alive in front of her young students. Some of the students attested to her heroism, stating that she quite simply saved lives by standing up to the attackers.

About the Author

earned a Master of Arts in Political Science (International Relations and Foreign Comparative Politics) in United States Foreign Policy and National Security studies from Northern Illinois University in 2006. He is the co-founder and senior writer of Foreign-Intrigue.com. Eric is a former soldier in the United States Army and served two deployments to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Eric writes on issues related to Eurasia. His research concentrates heavily on Eastern Europe, the Post-Soviet space, Xinjiang, and Afghanistan.

Follow Eric on Twitter via @Intrigue_Jones and at his site www.Foreign-Intrigue.com.

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Recon6

Minou_Demimonde good copy MD, silly p.o.s. in the w.h. has no clue as to combat ops and his stupidity knows no limits....6

Minou_Demimonde

It’s pretty horrible that it took something like this, with the associated public outcry, for these two governments to work together on something that affects them both. And I don’t see it coming together much, honestly. Drone attacks are good, though. I like those.
There really is no border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, though. It’s just a paper border in that particular area. It’s so permeable that mass movements of people between the two countries happens on a frequent basis. I don’t see them being able to stop the terrorists without a great loss of life.
And…ISAF has new policies regarding engagement. And more people left in Afghanistan than we had originally planned.
Dakota Meyer said that he doesn’t understand how you can train the Afghanis in a combat zone without engaging in the fight. I fear he is right.
So much for the war being over.

Minou_Demimonde

It’s pretty horrible that it took something like this, with the associated public outcry, for these two governments to work together on something that affects them both. And I don’t see it coming together much, honestly. Drone attacks are good, though. I like those.
There really is no border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, though. It’s just a paper border in that particular area. It’s so permeable that mass movements of people between the two countries happens on a frequent basis. I don’t see them being able to stop the terrorists without a great loss of life.
And…ISAF has new policies regarding engagement. And more people left in Afghanistan than we had originally planned.
Dakota Meyer said that he doesn’t understand how you can train the Afghanis in a combat zone without engaging in the fight. I fear he is right.
So much for the war being over.

YankeePapa

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"...We hold these truths to be self-evident..." Well, they may indeed be truths, but they are most definitely not 'self-evident', or history would be a lot tidier.
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...The English and even more so the French, for all that they are democracies... shake their heads at much of what we take (or at least used to take) for granted. In pre-Internet days a "Watergate" scandal in either country would never have seen the light of day. As to people in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and most of the Third World... we are viewed as at best hopelessly deluded... if not positively Satanic.
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...We were lucky enough to have Founding Fathers who were mostly products of "The Enlightenment..." (which was already starting to lose traction in Europe...) An officer proposing to George Washington that children of English soldiers be slaughtered in furtherance of the Revolution, would have been locked in a room with a rubber sword. That isn't who we were... and it isn't who we are.
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...But it is who some of our enemies are. Unfortunately, it is also who some of our "allies" are. The Nigerian Army might not single out children... but they don't need to... when they "vent their frustration" on a village... shooting everything that moves. In large parts of Africa and elsewhere, villages don't even have to be suspected of aiding terrorists... just being members of the wrong tribe is sufficient.
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...In WW2 the American government went off the deep end telling the public that the Soviets were "freedom loving" and that "Uncle Joe" was just, "...another kind of Democrat..." Since the end of WW2 Americans have often been told that they are allied with "democracies" like South Korea in 1950 and South Vietnam in 1965. If the countries we find ourselves in are in the ruins of outfits like those run by Saddam and the Taliban... then we announce that we will make them democracies.
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...I am not a total cynic. Sometimes, in our own best interests we need to fight in some stinking undemocratic land as South Korea was in 1950. Whoever held the South held a knife at Japan... and Japan was critical to our Pacific policy. It took a couple of generations for the South Koreans to evolve an actual (for that part of the world) democracy... and to become economically viable. Not an investment that we can make everywhere.
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... In spite of our many problems, America still understands (though it has frayed around the edges in later years) the concept of "...the leader of the loyal opposition..." In most countries the closest that you can come is "chief enemy..." or "...corpse..." depending on the tense. Rome, the birthplace of the idea of the republic... later became the birthplace of fascism. Greece, the birthplace of democracy, found itself under the rule of a military dictatorship a couple of generations ago.
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...The bottom line is that while human beings share much in common... as societies we are often very different. And while it is unlikely to happen, our people need to understand that it is usually not a black and white world out there. Sometimes it is a choice between bad and horrific. Otherwise the public will very quickly become disillusioned... and our military efforts will have no staying power.
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-YP-